Thats right.
I heard this academic, and another from Macquarie Uni, saying the same thing on the radio last night.
And this Boston Globe editorial suggests that Iran has set a trap for Israel (note that date is 13 July 2006), the purpose being to distract from Irans nuclear ambitions and to turn attention towards Israel being the source of threat in the region.
Looks like since the article was written that, by attacking Lebanon, Israel has fallen into this trap.
Your characterization of this event appears to be distorted.
MSNBC says that the greenhouses were stripped by looters and implies that inadequate security was to blame. The greenhouses were not dismantled as part of an anti-Israeli demonstration or riot. Blame greed, blame weak governance and the absense of the rule of law: hatred doesn’t appear to be the issue.
That said, it was an appalling act. US philanthropists put up $14 million; $500,000 was donated by James Wolfensohn, former World Bank President.
Full disclosure: my entire knowledge of this comes from this single article. As always, factual corrections are welcome.
Yeah well, I’m not sure the ‘trap’ worked all that well then. If anything this whole issue has awakened the Arab world to the threat posed by the Iranians to them. One of the remarkable things about these events is that many Arabs have been lining up on Israel’s side. The Saudi and Egyptian governments, while calling the Israeli actions disproportionate, both laid the blame on Hezbollah. The Arab News wrote an editorial slamming Hezbollah and calling for its dismantling.
This editorial by an Arab in the Chicago Tribune is very interesting.
If anything this whole episode has increased the world’s awareness of the problems Iran is causing.
Crazy. Some non-Leb Sunnis finds it useful that Shias are getting wacked, and this constitutes an awareness by Arabs about what Iran’s been doing?
I believe they pretty much knew all along, first, and second, well, forget it, there is no second.
First, a comment from the journal of a person who has shown herself to be extremely anti-Hizbullah, but is, after all, Lebanese in the end:
The whole thing long since got to the point where it defies reason. And Reason:
With every day and every bomb, Israel loses more and more people who would have been sympathetic had they actually directed their anger at Hizbullah, instead of all over the place. (BTW, see the tail end of the Reason article for a speculation that, interestingly enough, dovetails with that editorial you cited.)
Further aside, the journal commentator, cedarseed, is making the same mistake that a lot of other people are making when looking at this: that Israel is targetting, and only means to target, Hizbullah.
This is wrong.
See the Ha’aretz article I cited in my first post above. They said they were going to war against the nation of Lebanon, and that’s what they’ve been doing. It makes no sense given that as far as I know, the Lebanese army itself still hasn’t fired a shot, but there you have it. It’s what has so many of us shaking our heads in wonder.
Riiiiight. Israel lost the sympathy of those fair minded folks who fully supported them when they went after Hamas in Gaza and… oh… wait…
Yeah, I’m sure that if Israel invaded and occupied and fought a house-to-house war in south Lebanon that all the people would cheer Israel on. Certainly we wouldn’t hear the same old same old claims. Nawwwww.
You mean that they’re targeting the terrorists… and their state sponsor? Wow… that’s like, crazy. Why on earth would they find the people who help supply weapons to Hezbollah at all responsible for Hezbollah having weapons? It makes no sense. Crazy Israelis.
What part of the word “proxy” confuses you?
Indeed.
Many news sources are reporting that the Israeli strikes are strategical and precise. Based on reports from people in Lebanon, this is not the case - many attacks are against civilians, whether intentional or not. So far, in Lebanon 300 people have been killed, 1,000 have been wounded and a half-million displaced.
As for the Lebanese supplying weapons to Hezbollah, you may have missed the news that before the war there were large anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon. And the government is anti-Syrian. Maybe this anti-Syrian sentiment will begin to wane now.
They aren’t; they are attacking everybody else. They aren’t crazy; just terrorists and fools.
Civilians are being killed in Lebanon because Hezbollah has insinuated itself into the civilian population and is using them as a shield. This is a standard tactic terrorist organizations use all the time - attack, and then force the counter-attack to go through civilians so that world opinion turns against the people who are defending themselves.
In the meantime, Hezbollah is loading its rockets with BB-shot and other shrapnel to maximize civilian casualties. But somehow, that doesn’t get the anti-Israel crowd’s hands wringing about the injustice of war.
Because so many Lebanese are dying, and so few Israelis.
So many Lebonese civilians are being killed because Israel is trying to inflict maximum damage in the 2 week window that it will have before the UN acts. It is using a massive amount of ordinance, DISPROPORTIONATE to that used by Hezbollah.
Of course Hezbollah is trying to cause maximum damage with its missiles, they are evil thugs just like Israel, though limited to more primitive means to cause damage.
Care to make anything else up out of whole cloth? Or you got a cite, finally?
Didn’t think so.
Oh, this is high absurdity we’re into now. You’re honestly suggesting that when one country declares war on another by an overt act of naked aggression, that the country which has been attacked has to make sure to use no more pounds of explosives than they’re attacked with? Heavens forbid that they’re better at defending themselves than at being attacked, eh? :dubious:
What is this, the Kindergarten Rule of War?
Cite?
300 deaths in a war against a nation hardly sounds like civilian targeted attacks. How many apartment complexes would Israel have to hit in order to get the body count into the thousands if that’s what they were really aiming at?
Non sequitor.
The Lebanese government attacked Israel via a proxy force whether or not there were large Anti-Syrian protests. In addition, Hezbollah != Syria.
This, by the way, perfectly sums up the massive intellectual dishonesty of many Anti-Israel folks.
One side is not only targeting civilians, but trying to -maximize- civilian casualties. But that’s gleefully ignored because they’re not as good at murdering Israelis as the Israelis are at defending themselves.
Makes perfect sense.
Who says they are *trying *to kill innocent people?
Israel is still killing 50 civilians per day.
How many of our der trihs’s claims shall I cite? Should I limit it to his claims, or others on the dope/web/media-sphere?
Civilians die in war.
Lebanon started the war.
Hezbollah makes its bases in civilian areas.
The fault for those deaths is Lebanon’s and Hezbollah’s.
Lebanese lives are worth as much as Israeli lives. Simple proposition. Saving them from deaths like these is also real real easy, if you’re actually interested in going after your enemy rather than engage in collective punishment of a peaceful people.
I’m out of here. No way am I debating depraved shit like this, since that would imply that there’s an actual legitimate second side to this.
Bye Pantom.
Yes, that’s why Lebanon should not have launched a war against Israel.
That’s also why Israel deserves to defend itself. Or are Israeli lives worth less than Lebanese? :rolleyes:
When a country commits an act of war against you, that entire country is at war with you. Not just areas which support the war. Lebanon started a war. As a result, their civilians are dying.
It is quite odd that all the anti-Israel folks seem to be wilfully ignorant of the fact that war always involves civilian casualties, that Lebanon is the aggressor, and that responding to an act of war commited by a sovereign state is hardly ‘collective punishment’. Or if America were to invade Canada tomorrow, would the only valid targets for retaliation be red states? :dubious:
You are, however, right that it’d be real easy for them to have been saved from this. Lebaon could’ve refrained from supplying Hezbollah with weapons.
In any case, as events have shown again, and again, and again, your position is bankrupt in every sense of the word. If Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon and started house-to-house fighting, we’d be hearing the exact same claims. Over-reaction, collective punishment, terrorism, Israel has to let them kill as many Israeli civilians as Lebanese who get caught in the crossfire or it’s just sooooo unfair, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Or do you honestly contend that the reaction would be any different, at all, from what just happened with Gaza? That’s where the missiles were coming from, and where Hamas was in force, and yet we still heard the exact same rhetoric. You want us to believe that when Israel bombed power facilities in south Lebanon and occupied the area, leftists all over the world would praise Israel for its restraint?
There’s a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you, cheap.
But the blog you quoted is certainly an ironclad cite. Of course, Mosad knows all. They’re like the boogeymen, and stuff.
War is hell. Its function is to break shit and kill people.
Lebanon started the war. Israel is defending itself.
How very depraved.
Buh bye.
It does. What matters are results. Does a dead body care if it was collateral damage ? You, of course, hold the position that killing random people is defense, not murder. Only the Israelis are human; to you, killing an enemy soldier is worse than killing a random civilian, as long as the soldier is Israeli.